It’s About Making Babies!

Every relationship revolves around discipline.

Whether you consider a friend or lover, or a neighbor, you can lose your welcome if you violate what they need. Irritations can grow, objections become obstacles.

When your spouse is tired or frustrated – what they need is respect and discipline from you. They need support in the form of space to refresh and heal, they need support in the form of kept promises and meeting everyday expectations.

A crisis.

A rescue, an extraordinary sacrifice or effort to protect another from injury or mishap, is inappropriate – unless someone needs saved. Because an unwanted intervention, or even a welcome but unnecessary intervention, won’t be recognized. You sacrifice yourself, surrender your respect and self-preservation – for nothing. Done regularly, you lose yourself, and your partner loses respect for your efforts and your judgment.

Because we don’t live in crisis mode. Crises come along rarely – or we have grossly failed to plan and to understand and reduce risks and dangers in our lives.

Flirting with danger got sensationalist Steve Irwin killed, eventually. It happens that way with relationships, too.

The shire filly.

I sold a shire filly (a female horse, of the Shire draft horse breed) a few years back – and almost regretted the sale. The filly was a weanling, maybe 5-6 months old, a common age for young horses to be sold. Through contacts a family bought Susy (the filly). When the family came to pick up the untrained and generally calm filly, I got concerned.

The couple pulled up with their horse trailer, and grabbed the filly’s lead rope. And wondered why she didn’t lead onto their trailer. The filly was untrained – the new owners had been told this but didn’t understand what untrained means. For Susy, this meant that with her calm manner, she put up with more fussing and handling that is usual – before she kicked out or backed out or spun around or tried to run off. Untrained means she had been on a trailer once, with a bunch of other foals, but she didn’t remember getting on, and didn’t understand why she should accept this particular dark and almost-steady construct.

By this time I had led and loaded a few green (untrained) horses, and we got the filly onboard with little fuss, mostly because Susy was so generous and patient. Her new owners were green – I hadn’t realized that when we made the sale.

I mentioned several training books, when the lady scared me. “We have three daughters at home – Susy will get all the loving she needs!” “Ma’am, Susy needs discipline, not loving.” I wonder how they all came out.

Often green owners end up with an unusable “pasture ornament” when they try to start with a green horse. Unless someone gets hurt. But, oddly, some times the mix works.

About as often as after dragging someone home from a bar, you wake up next morning with a solvent, honest and honorable companion for life lying next to you.

Discipline. Respect. Communication.

If you want to strengthen your relationship, the place to start is with respect. Respect for yourself, respect for your partner. That can never make a salvageable relationship worse.

Loving “harder” or “more”, though, is selfish. The payback for loving someone .. is having feelings of love for someone. Love harder, and you feel more intently.

Love is a mix of emotions and beliefs, and varies from moment to moment. The relative proportions of faith, adoration, admiration, affection, sense of belonging to and sense of attachment to will depend on circumstances, experience, and practice.

To love harder is to focus on your own feelings, to act to reinforce yourself. In times of stress and difficulty, the answer is more often going to be teamwork – communication, generosity, respect, honor and honesty. The most important part is to know your partner, to respect your partner’s needs and avoid things that add stress, whatever that might be for your partner – and for you.

Pulling bushes.

Verde at G4s (backyard) Homestead talks about garden planning – after learning that the expected garden space just became unavailable. Part of the response: Clear the front lawn, to put a garden there. Step one: Pull some unwanted bushes.

The story winds up mentioning that the significant other has been away during the denuding of the lawn and dismantling-by-pickup of portions of the sprinkler system. I bit my tongue.

Because this is a case where respect meant – talk to the absent one, that is known to react badly to change. Talk first. Announce the plans before acting. Surprises are badly over-rated, and Verde admits to concern over the fallout as the returning partner discovers the rearrangement. I wanted to shout – “Call him! Tell him what happened. Tell him your plans, don’t let him stumble on the carnage unawares!” This is a time for respect and communication. Honor means that a partner – participates. Each may have their responsibilities, but each deserves to know what is going on.

Consequences.

Will this event end Verde’s relationship? Likely not. Will it add stress, reduce trust and respect? Yep. Will it add closeness, love? No.

Whether the choice to transform the front lawn into a garden is correct – the relationship suffers. Needlessly. Maybe the hurts will heal completely. Certainly the vegetables anticipated from the projected garden will be welcome – but they may or may not overcome the cloud over the surprise awaiting Verde’s partner.

Luck, Verde.